London curling? Music to my ears

Calling all English curlers ... where are you? Both of our British men's and women's teams at the Winter Olympics are exclusively made up of Scots.

The reason, sadly, is obvious. Scotland is the home of curling: the game was founded there and the stones are still carved out of genuine Ailsa Craig granite.

However, it has successfully travelled to Canada, to the United States, to Germany, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland but not to England.

It's ridiculous really but there is not a single curling club in England.

There are 32 rinks in Scotland, from Stranraer in the south to Brora in the Highlands but not one in London, Birmingham or Manchester.

Around 12,500 Scottish schoolchildren have been introduced to the sport through an initiative sponsored by Bank of Scotland called Curling's Cool while in England, despite the fact it is an Olympic sport which does not involve the need for a trip to the Alps, the number of kids who have played it is zero. The Scots are so keen on curling there is even an Ailsa Craig jewellery collection of brooches made out of granite, decorated with diamonds, gold and pearl and formed in the shape of a curling stone.

Thanks to the heroic exploits of Rhona and Rhonettes - Rhona Martin's team are in the semi-finals after winning two dramatic play-offs - anyone watching the coverage of the Games from Salt Lake City cannot fail to have missed the stone sliding, slipping and brushing that is now gripping our nation.

Some hate it, likening the game to a form of Chinese water torture because it takes so long for anything to happen and it is indecipherable in its terms and tactics.

Others, including me, are gripped by the constant chat between the team members, the precision of the shots, the frantic nature of the sweeping, the consistency of the players and the subtlety required to know when to score and when it is better not to score at all and so retain the hammer (the final and usually decisive throw of the end).

In case you think that watching too much curling has addled my mind, I should point out it's not just me. Curling has made up 43 per cent of everything filmed at the Games - and that's by the Americans, not us.

On Valentine's Day, when you would think most internet junkies would be tapping into Interflora websites or trying to access pictures from the new Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the most popular topic in the internet world was, believe it or not, curling. I jest not: it replaced Anna Kournikova as the subject most people wanted to know more about.

To go and curl you need an ice rink but you also need seven other people. It needs to be properly organised and it needs a high-quality ice rink. It takes 36 hours to convert a rink that has been used for skating into sheets (strips of ice) suitable for curling.

However, the financial returns are worth it. In Scotland, the average price to curl is £6.50 per person - that's £52 per match and with a large ice rink, four or even six matches can take place at the same time.

There are rumours that a club may be established in Oxford but what about London?

In Alexandra Palace we have a beautiful and enormous venue suitable for all things icy, which has staged curling in the past but no longer does.

Someone out there with a bit of initiative ought to tap into the interest generated by the Games and get curling in the capital off the ground.

A winter game the Brits cannot afford to lose

The Scottish domination of curling raises another interesting point about the overall make-up of the British team.

Of the 50 competitors, 28 of them are English, 21 are Scottish and one is Welsh.

There is understandable concern among the British Olympic Association that with devolution continuing at its present rate, this could be the last Winter Games in which Britain competes as a united kingdom, as it were.

The row over Great Britain's top men's slalom skier Alain Baxter's hair (dyed blue and white in the shape of cross of St Andrew) developed because the BOA interpreted the gesture as a 'political statement'.

The IOC rules specify that no athlete can use his or her presence at the Games to promote a political cause.

This is a move designed to prevent religious or racial tension.

Baxter insisted it was not a political statement, just a sign that he is "proud to be Scottish" but dyed the white cross dark blue to avoid further problems.

There is considerable jumpiness among the British officials at any display of national pride.

No competitor is allowed to wear an English, Welsh or Scottish flag on their person or equipment (Lesley McKenna was forced to remove a Scottish flag from her snowboard) - only the Union flag is authorised.

The fear, no doubt, being that if the IOC's attention is drawn to devolution in this country, they could insist that Great Britain is separated into its different nations.

The role of the BOA would then become redundant.

They can only hope that IOC president Jacques Rogge won't be watching either the Six Nations rugby or the Commonwealth Games.

Pincay still gets plenty of stick

If you've seen
Sports Illustrated's just published annual 'swimsuit issue', you will probably think: 'some guys have all the luck'.

At 55, Laffit Pincay Jnr is considerably older than his 'junior' tag suggests, though he rarely weighs in at more than 8st 5lbs. He has won more races than any other jockey in the world and, as the suggestive pose of his wife illustrates, gets plenty of stick at home!

Panama born Pincay has ridden more than 9,000 winners, notching up more than 200 in a season 23 times. Last year he changed his diet (which is famous for its strictness) to include fruit, in the hope that the sugar would increase his energy. "I'd never had sugar before," he said, "I really think fruit has saved my career."

He's riding as many winners as ever and looking at the picture with his wife, it evidently hasn't done his marriage any harm.

So the next time we tip sugar into our tea or coffee, maybe we can feel a little better about it. That's if anyone can ever imagine reaching the age of 55 without having had sugar before.

Old order is safe

Contrary to some reports, I am not about to take over the presentation of rugby union, nor would I ever presume to be called 'the face of rugby'.

So before too many people get their Y-fronts in a misogynistic twist, I can reassure them that my presence will be rare and fleeting.

I will be doing the occasional feature piece, conducting interviews and presenting a 'fan's guide' to some of the cities in which the Six Nations is staged.

None of those roles particularly requires me to have scored a try for my country or to have developed cauliflower ears, although if I hear too much more tosh being talked about female sports presenters, the latter might become evident.

Those who believe that women shouldn't cover male sports remain to be convinced.

That's their problem, not mine, so I'll just keep doing the jobs I'm asked to do and doing them as well as I possibly can.